An Open Letter

Dear Lady with Four Dogs,

You don't know me, but I'm the woman you saw late this afternoon walking the mid-sized terrier mix up my driveway to my house. You were the woman with four little dogs (I think it was two pomeranians, a chihuahua, and what looked like a very small spaniel) walking along the bike path. For reason I'll get into in a moment, I couldn't help but notice that none of your dogs were wearing leashes. The town laws, which you probably received just as I did when you got notification that it was time to renew you four dog licenses, state that all dogs must be leashed or under effective command. Now I know dogs aren't always perfectly behaved and I'm generally not going to complain if a dog comes over to sniff me so long as the owner has the dog under reasonable control. As you may have guessed from the fact that I have a dog, I love dogs. I love dogs of all breeds, shapes, and sizes. The fact that your four dogs are all very small does not come into this. As long as you're keeping your dogs under control within reason, you'll have no trouble from me.

Unfortunately, this was no the case. As I was coming home from walking my dog, on-leash, I heard a high pitched barking. Looking up my driveway towards the bike path, I saw one little dog running up from the bike path in my direction. Seconds later, I was stunned to see the one dog joined by three more little dogs, all running from the bike path onto my property, all barking like crazy at my dog.

Now again, I like dogs. I hope I never in my life have to hurt one for any reason. But when I see a bunch of dogs running at me barking with no owner in sight, I get worried. And when my dog is with me, my dog who is a great dog but who gets very excited when he sees other dog and who seldom has the sense to see when another dog clearly does not want to play with him, I get worried about him. My dog's safety comes first. I told him to sit and despite being excited, he listened. I put myself between him and your four barking dogs as best I could and started trying to shoo them away. I yelled, I waved my hands and the end of the leash. I was not exactly friendly to them. Under those circumstance, it's hard to be.

It was at this point that you started calling your dogs. And I watched as, hesitantly, they turned around and started running back to you. But they didn't make it all the way back. They turned right around and ran back into my yard over to my dog. You called again, they came closer to you. Some of them did actually come back that second time, but there was one who still wasn't convinced. he headed back towards me and my dog and you had to call him a third time before he rejoined you and the others and you were on your way.

Now what's wrong with this picture? My dog - who is far from perfect obedience-wise, but generally responds to my commands - was on a leash, on my property, heading home from a walk. Your four dogs were off-leash, ran onto the property of a total stranger, barked at a strange dog who was on his property and not bothering them at all, and failed to come all the way back to you before you had called them three times. I do appreciate that you at least did not get mad at me for yelling at your dogs to beat it. But an apology, or some acknowledgment of the fact that your dogs should not have been on my property, would have been nice.

Again, the law in this town is that dogs need to be restrained or under effective command when off the owner's property. Your dogs were not under your control in any sense of the word. They need to be on leashes. Now maybe you think that's too much hassle. Maybe the leashes get all tangled up and you spend more time getting them straightened out than you do actually walking. I don't care. You're the one who chose to have four dogs. You're the one who needs to figure out how to walk them effectively and within the boundaries of the law and the bike path. And it's not just me that I'm thinking about here. It's your dogs too. What if they had run into someone else's yard, someone who didn't just yell and wave her arms, but gave each of your dogs a good sharp kick? What if one of your dogs ended up in a yard with a little kid and before you could get the dog back, the kid pulled the dog's tail and the dog bit the kid? Or what if one of the dogs even just wandered onto the wrong side of the bike path just as a fast moving cyclist was coming the other way?

I am an understanding person, especially when it comes to dogs. Had I met your four dogs under better circumstances, I may well have liked them very much. But for your dogs to run into my yard and bark at me and my dog, completely free of your control, is unacceptable. If your any of your dogs ever ventures onto my property again, I will not hesitate to tell you to leash your dogs. And if you give me the slightest bit of trouble, I will not hesitate to call the police - who have their station right on the other side of the bike path, in case you didn't know - and ask them to speak to you about leashing your dogs. For the sake of your little pack, if nothing else, I hope you are more careful in the future.

Regards,
Sara